Lomzha-Bialystok Pocket
The Lomzha-Bialystok Pocket was an encirclement campaign carried out by the German Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa in World War II. Background German plans On 22 June 1941, Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union - began. The Germans massed large army groups along the Soviet border, and they set several objectives for themselves, hoping to achieve them by mid-July; they sought to capture the city of Minsk and all of the other strongholds (Kaunas, Vilnius, and Brest-Litovsk) along the way. The Soviets also had a large concentration of troops along the border, so the German commander-in-chief, Walther von Brauchitsch, hatched a plan to destroy the Soviet Red Army in one fell swoop. He decided to have Army Group North sweep through Lithuania, captured Kaunas and Vilnius, and form a northern pincer that would attack the Soviet 3rd Army from the north. The northern segment of Army Group Center would hold the line along the Poland-Belarus border, while the southern segment would secure Brest-Litovsk and the Pripet Marshes and form a southern pincer to close the encirclement. The ultimate plan was for the two pincers to join at the town of Mosty in the east, trapping several Soviet corps in a large cauldron that would be reduced in size until its borders stretched from Lomzha in the west to Bialystok in the east. The "Lomzha-Bialystok Pocket" would therefore tie down the majority of Soviet forces guarding the approaches to Minsk, and the Germans would be able to destroy the bulk of the Soviet army. Preparations In both the north and south, the German army groups made good progress. On the first day of the operation, Army Group North secured Kaunas, and its VI Armeekorps proceeded south to trap the Soviets in a salient to the east of Suwalki, where Soviets were faced by three German forces at once. Meanwhile, Army Group North's II Armeekorps would clear the lands immediately to the east of Kaunas, which were still in Soviet hands. In the south, Army Group Center outflanked the Soviet fotress of Brest-Litovsk and advanced into the Pripet Marshes, securing the Dnepr-Bug Canal. The Germans then launcehd an attack on Brest-Litovsk from multiple sides, capturing the fortress, and they proceeded to push the Soviets across the Pina River and towards the Shara River further east. With the Germans advancing to the north and south, while remaining on the defensive in the center, the Soviet 3rd Army began to be outflanked, and the makings of a cauldron were underway. The German 4th Army in the south ground to a halt due to the need to rest and refuel, while German forces in the north were also forced to halt due to supply shortages. However, smaller German forces were sent to initiate the formation of the gap by driving the outlying Soviet forces into a more dense pocket. Campaign Suwalki salient The first phase of the pocket's creation was the elimination of the salient to the east of Suwalki. Two rifle divisions and two fortified regions were trapped in the salient, and the Germans attacked from all sides. The northernmost Soviet unit, the Soviet 126th Rifle Division, was shattered after the XXXIX Panzer Corps assaulted it. The Germans proceeded to work their way south, attacking the 48th Fortified Region next. The 48th Fortified Region was forced to surrender after another German victory. The German forces closed in tighter on the salient, with Adolf Kuntzen's LVII Panzer Corps attacking the Soviet 128th Rifle Division. The division was shattered, suffering extremely heavy losses. Finally, the Germans assaulted the 68th Fortified Region, and the region's surrender led to the elimination of the salient. Biebrza line With the Suwalki salient eliminated and the VI Armeekorps driving deeper into the Soviet pocket, the Germans set out to thin out the Soviet line by capturing a strip of Soviet-defended land across the Biebrza River. The "Biebrza line" stretched from the Narew River in the west to Augustow in the east. The first step in eliminating the bulge was the capture of Augustow, a task undertaken by Walter Heitz's VIII Armeekorps. The Germans secured the town after shattering the 86th NKVD Border Regiment, and German mechanized infantry from the LVII Panzer Corps flowing in to assist the other German units. The swamp to the west of Augustow was captured by the German 162nd Infantry Division, a part of Friedrich Materna's XX Armeekorps, from the Soviet 4th Rifle Corps, which was routed. The XXXXII Armeekorps under Kuntze continued on the offensive, forcing the 66th Fortified Region to surrender. In a rare and early victory for the Soviets, the Soviet 1st Rifle Corps held Grajewo against two German attacks. After repeated ground and air attacks, the Germans finally managed to force the Soviet 2nd Rifle Division to retreat, taking the town of Grajewo. Much the same occurred at Kulmo, where it took several attempts for the Germans to secure the fortress before the Soviets retreated. After much more severe fighting, the rest of the Biebrza line fell to the Germans. The capture of the line was costly for the Germans, who now faced their first experience of facing a battle-ready enemy. Squeezing the Gap The Germans now confined the Soviets to a certain geographical area: the Soviet gap was now delineated by the Biebrza River in the north, the Bug River in the west, the entrance to the Pripet Marshes (occupied by a German defensive line) to the south, and the Nieman River and the town of Volkovysk to the east. Rather than wait for his troops in the south to resupply in order to close the gap and allow for the bulk of the Soviet forces to retreat to safety, Von Brauchitsch decided to squeeze the Soviet units into an even tighter perimeter. He figured that it would be better for a few battered Soviet units to escape from the opening of a "salient" (as opposed to a "pocket") than it would be if the entire Soviet force was able to retreat due to the Germans' insistence on waiting to close the gap. Von Brauchitsch then gave the order for the border units to begin assaulting the Soviet positions on the other sides of the riverbanks. The offensive began with an attack on Grodno by the XXXIX Panzer Corps under Rudolf Schmidt. The Soviet 7th AT Artillery Brigade was shattered, and the Germans moved into Grodno, inching towards Volkovysk, the planned cutoff point for the pocket. To the north of the pocket, the Germans crossed the Biebrza to attack the Soviet positions at Osovets (as well as to its east), and they succeeded in destroying the Soviet forces in the area. Completing the encirclement With the Soviet bulge at Osovets eliminated, German forces formed a new defensive line in the north. The III Armeekorps then moved southeast to an area west of Schuchin, while the LVII Panzer Corps moved to the south of Mosty and motorized and panzer troops (from the 10th Panzer Division and 29th Mechanized Division) moved to the south of the LVII Panzer Corps. In the south, mechanized infantry troops began to fan out, and the encirclement was nearly complete, apart from a decent-sized gap between the German 78th Infantry Division in the Pripet Marshes and the Soviet-held town of Volkovysk (to the west of 10th Panzer and 29th Mechanized). The center of this gap was the town of Belsk, which also housed the headquarters for two Soviet corps. The German 134th Infantry Division advanced from the south towards Belsk, routing the Soviet 31st Tank Division on the outskirts of the town. After the victory, the Germans moved into an abandoned Belsk, as the Soviet forces had retreated. This enabled the encirclement to tighten, and German units closed in on the ever-shrinking Soviet pocket. In the north, the Germans sought to secure the railroad from Augustow in the north to Grodno to Augustow's southeast, and the LVII Panzer Corps succeeded in routing the 85th and 56th Rifle Divisions, freeing up the route and connecting the German supply lines. The Germans closed in as Soviet units began to be defeated. Fall of Volkovysk Volkovysk was of critical strategic importance, as it was a vital junction of three Russian railroads, and it was also a Soviet stronghold that could possibly keep the cauldron open. The Germans decided to eliminate the Soviet stronghold to definitively connect the southern and northern German foces and fully encircle the forming pocket. German panzer and motorized forces succeeded in capturing Volkovysk after destroying the Soviet 204th Motorized Division, and the LVII Panzer Corps moved into Volkovysk as the mechanized and panzer troops headed south to complete the encirclement. Now that the Soviets were entirely encircled, all that was left for the Germans was to continually tighten the gap until the last Soviet forces were destroyed. In the south, the German 292nd Infantry Division took Drogochin from the Soviet 113th Rifle Division, and German divisions closed in from all sides. The gap was weakened, and division after Soviet division was shattered, routed, or forced to retreat. The Soviets put up fierce resistance, and the desperate Soviet units found themselves retreating from one battlefield to the next as multiple German units closed in. Closing the gap The Soviet gap rapidly shrunk in size as the surrounding German forces squeezed the Soviets into an even tighter corridor. German panzer and infantry divisions succeeded in easily destroying the NKVD border units, while the remaining Soviet armored and infantry division put up fierce resistance; in some cases, they even managed to temporarily hold off German attacks. The Germans succeeded in destroying the vast majority of Soviet forces in the pocket, while a few units routed and escaped through cracks in the German perimeter. Nevertheless, the German objective of decimating the Soviet border forces had succeeded, clearing the way for an advance on Minsk. Category:World War II Category:Battles